Help, I'm Alive
by INMH
Summary: Post 1.12 Relevés. Abigail wakes up. Warning: Spoilers, Kidnapping, Amputation of a Body-Part, Imprisonment, Strong Language, Generally Terrible Things Because This is Hannibal, etc.


Help, I'm Alive

**Rating:** PG-13/T

**Genre:** Horror/Drama/Angst/Hurt/Comfort

**Summary:** Post 1.12 Relevés. Abigail wakes up. Warning: Spoilers, Kidnapping, Amputation of a Body-Part, Imprisonment, Strong Language, Generally Terrible Things Because This is Hannibal, etc.

**Author's Note:** It's at the end. Don't want to spoil anyone. Also, I may tie this into another story I'm planning.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Hannibal. It belongs to NBC, Thomas Harris, and Bryan Fuller. The title comes from the song of the same name, by Metric.

[-]

_"I'm so sorry__, __Abigail__._ I'm sorry I couldn't protect you in this life."

His hand, still on the side of her head, jerks sharply. Pain explodes in Abigail's skull, and everything goes black and still.

[-]

Abigail wakes up.

It takes her fifteen seconds to snap into full alertness. It takes almost a full two minutes to remember the circumstances of how she came to be unconscious, as badly as her thoughts swim. It takes an additional thirty seconds to process where she is- on a tiny bed in a well-furnished room with the blinds over the windows, and her hands cuffed to each bedpost. It takes a final fifteen seconds to fully comprehend one, simple fact:

She is alive.

Three minutes after she awakes, Abigail bursts into tears of sheer relief.

[-]

There is something wrong with her head.

It's the left side, the side Hannibal was touching right before he knocked her out. It feels funny, numb, and just… Wrong. There is something there that shouldn't be- cloth, or maybe gauze.

Both of her hands are chained in such a way that Abigail can't just reach up and touch to see what it is. There doesn't seem to be a mirror anywhere in the room, certainly not one that she can get a proper look at herself in.

Her hair has been pulled over to her right shoulder. Maybe, she thinks, when Hannibal knocked her out there was some bleeding. Maybe he had treated her for it, and that was why she felt funny. She did have a head-injury, after all.

The idea holds water until she realizes that Hannibal had pushed on the left side of her head to smash the right side into the counter. The pain is- strangely enough- almost non-existent, but after forcing the right side of her head onto the pillow, there is pain. Unless she had hit something else on the way down, being knocked out couldn't explain the odd sensation on her left.

[-]

Abigail drifts in and out of sleep, and dreams of Marissa impaled on the antlers.

She never sees Hannibal, but senses him everywhere, lurking.

[-]

Some time later, Hannibal returns.

Abigail goes tense, but does not fight against the cuffs. There's no point- and maybe if she plays nicely, Hannibal will continue to keep her alive. Will is too smart, he'll figure out eventually that something's up and come looking. Why he or someone else hasn't figured Hannibal out by now is startling.

"I am sorry, Abigail." Hannibal whispers. He sits down on the bed beside her, reaches over and strokes her hair.

Something dark clicks within Abigail then.

Hannibal is sitting on her left, but he reached over to her right to touch her hair. Why not the left?

"What did you do to me?" Her voice is steady, the calm before the storm.

"I am sorry." His face is sad. Or at least, it looks sad. She's not sure if he's capable of feeling anything. "I am so sorry, Abigail. It was the only way."

"_What_ was the only way?" Abigail's heart is racing.

Hannibal does not answer- the expression on his face suggests that he is struggling with it, but again, Abigail doesn't know whether or not she can believe it is emotion or yet another manipulation.

He leaves, and Abigail cries herself to sleep.

[-]

She dreams of hunting with her father. But when she looks up at him, he has become Hannibal.

[-]

The left side of her head, somewhere around the region of her ear and that piece of cloth or gauze, is starting to hurt very, very badly.

It gets bad enough to the point where Abigail considers calling out for Hannibal to come and do something. Even when the pain becomes unbearable she struggles with bringing him back, all too aware now of the danger in his presence. What if he decides to kill her to end the pain?

But Hannibal comes back anyway, without being summoned. He has a glass of water in one hand and a pill bottle in the other. Abigail scoots into a sitting position and really, really hopes that those are some form of painkillers that he means to give her.

They are. Without a word, Hannibal opens the bottle and shakes out two small, white pills. He puts them into her mouth, and then holds the glass up for her to drink from. The pills taste awful, but Abigail is in too much pain to complain.

"I'm afraid you must tolerate the handcuffs for a little while longer, Abigail." Hannibal says. "I cannot remove them just now. Later, I will relocate you to a different room."

"How long have I been here?"

"About two days."

"And what did you do to me?"

Hannibal does not answer, and so Abigail knows that it is _something_.

He gets up to leave, and he will not look at her. In a way, he almost seems ashamed. But Abigail is giving less and less of a damn about whether or not Hannibal has feelings or not, because her fear and sadness it turning into anger. As he shuts the door, she screams after him,

"_What did you do to me?!_"

[-]

Soon her head goes foggy, and this time she sleeps without dreams.

[-]

When she wakes up, the pain is dull.

Her head has fallen to the left, pressing her head against the pillow. Something must have happened to her ear, because she can't feel it- maybe sleeping on it caused it to go numb. Honestly, her brain is still too cloudy to think on it too hard.

[-]

Abigail has no idea what Hannibal is planning.

He says he wants to move her- that could mean he intends to keep her alive, but in a place where no one will be able to hear or see her. And if he had wanted to kill her, wouldn't he have done so already? Wouldn't he have just throttled her in her sleep?

But what if he means to kill her? What if this delay is because he's still trying to figure out what he should do with her? What if he puts that unfortunately brilliant mind to work and decides that killing her would be the best way to keep himself safe? Why _is_ he taking so long to relocate her?

Abruptly, Abigail thinks of Will and Alana and realizes that oh _God_, they don't know. They don't know at all. Will is sick, he isn't himself, killing him would only be too easy- and Alana is feisty and curious and unwavering, and if she starts to suspect Hannibal he might kill her too…

Abigail bites her lip to stop herself from sobbing.

Not for the first time, she thinks maybe she would have been better off if her father had cut deep enough for a sure kill.

[-]

Hannibal returns once more.

This time, he is holding the keys to the cuffs.

Abigail is stone-faced and silent as he approaches. He stops before the bed, and his gaze is tender, sad, and warning all at once. "I will unlock the cuffs." He said.

Abigail nodded.

"Every door in this house is locked. If you try to run, I will catch up with you before you have a chance to break any of them open."

Abigail nods.

"I don't know if you will believe it, Abigail, but I do care for you dearly. I do not want to harm you. Behave yourself, and it will not be necessary."

Abigail rolled her eyes up to meet his, and hoped that he could see the fire behind them. "And if I don't," she said coldly, "will you kill me?"

Hannibal doesn't say anything, and that's all the answer she needs.

He undoes the cuffs, and Abigail sits up properly, slowly, shaking her arms and trying to get the blood circulating properly again. They hadn't been above her head, but rather stretched out, so at least it wasn't as bad as it could have been. She keeps one wary eye on Hannibal as she moves.

Hannibal stands back, hands folded, and waits for her to stand up. When she does, Abigail stumbles and has to stand still to get her bearings. She waits and then, when she's certain, she looks up at him. Hannibal seems less sad now and more blankly business-like, professional.

He turns and leads her out of the room.

[-]

As they're going down the hallway, Abigail catches sight of her reflection out of the corner of her eye.

She does a double-take when she sees something big and white on the side of her head, and stops. It is, in fact, gauze: It's covering the side of her head, including her ear- the place she was feeling all of that pain.

It's only when Abigail looks at her reflection head-on that she realizes that the gauze is flat. Flatter than it should be, if there was an ear beneath it.

Her ear is gone.

[-]

Abigail is fairly certain that she is going to die.

Hannibal has cut off her ear. As she slowly follows him downstairs, to the basement, her mind scrambles for an explanation that comes quickly: Hannibal doesn't want anyone looking for her, obviously. So her ear was probably the grim, tell-tale sign that Abigail is, in fact, dead.

And now he's taking her to his basement.

Abigail is mute, fists clenched, trying desperately to resist the urge to run or fight even as she takes inventory of all the possible ways that she could attack Hannibal and escape. _The doors are locked,_ she thinks, _but that statue looks heavy and maybe I can hit him hard enough to knock him out. I can break a window, I can break a lock, I can pick up a phone and call 9-1-1 and say "Tell Jack Crawford that he's full of shit, Hannibal Lecter is the serial killer and ask him how the __**fuck**__ he didn't figure that out before._

But she doesn't want to do anything just yet. Abigail has a cold, savage desire to survive, and playing ball with Hannibal may be the only way that's going to happen. Until she knows without a doubt that he means to kill her, resisting will only end with her corpse in a shallow grave somewhere.

Hannibal goes to the end of the basement and moves a painting off of the wall. Concealed behind it is a door-handle, which he turns.

[-]

It is a room.

It's smaller than the one she had woken up in, but still reasonably sized. There are no windows- but there are two beds, two dressers, a vanity, a great deal of books stacked in the corner, and what looks like a bathroom on the other side of the room.

There is also someone else there.

She is a woman, small and ashen and blonde. She is older than Abigail, but still young, probably in her mid-twenties. She looks a little surprised by Abigail's presence, but otherwise seems unfazed.

She is missing her arm below the elbow.

She looks at Abigail and takes a deep, deep breath.

"You too?"

-End


End file.
